SAP adopts blockchain to protect pharma partners’ data
Chronicled’s MediLedger Product Verification Solution was officially launched in July, earlier this year.
The blockchain platform uses an open standard blockchain directory and encrypted peer-to-peer messaging to allow stakeholders to check and confirm the authenticity of prescription medicines with partners.
The technology has been developed to be in compliance with the US drug supply chain security act (DSCSA), with the next stage of the law requiring drug products to be serialized and stakeholders to be able to verify product identifiers at the various stages through the supply chain.
Previously, a spokesperson told us, “The MediLedger network will be instrumental in securing the drug supply chain. More than 90% of the verification transactions will go through the MediLedger network when the next phase of the law goes live in November 2019.”
The MediLedger network already contains Pfizer, Gilead, and Genentech, with the latter company’s associate director, contract and channel management, Pablo Medina, saying “This partnership across stakeholders in the distribution chain is the first step toward DSCSA interoperability.”
SAP explained that the blockchain technology will be used in its ‘Information Collaboration Hub for Life Sciences’, which is a public cloud network designed to facilitate collaboration within the pharmaceutical supply chain. The hub can be used to exchange serialization and associated traceability data between partners.
Applied to its hub, the MediLedger technology will allow SAP customers to ‘enable verification routing’, which will improve stakeholders’ “ability to detect potential counterfeit products,” the company stated.
SAP noted that the combined solution is already in use by nine of the top 20 global pharmaceutical companies and two of the top three US wholesale distributors.
